Holly Sterling, the wife of CIA whistleblower Jeffrey Sterling, presented the White House with a petition on Wednesday asking President Obama to pardon her husband. Jeffrey Sterling is currently serving a 3 1/2-year prison term for leaking information to New York Times journalist James Risen.

The petition, which Holly Sterling started in December, quickly reached 100,000 signatures thanks to sponsorship from both Change.org and RootsAction.org. “Justice at some point is going to be served,” she said Wednesday at a news conference in the National Press Club. “The truth must come out. He is innocent, and he has always been innocent.”

Jeffrey Sterling’s legal troubles with the CIA began in 1997, when he was denied an overseas post in Germany. When a supervisor explained that he would “stick out as a big black guy speaking Farsi,” Sterling filed a racial discrimination complaint. Shortly afterward, the CIA fired him. He tried, unsuccessfully, to sue the agency for discrimination and reprisal, but the government blocked the lawsuit by invoking the state secrets privilege.

While at the CIA, Sterling also blew the whistle on a botched CIA operation called Operation Merlin. He told staffers at the Senate Intelligence Committee that the CIA had inadvertently sent nuclear secrets to Iran, and that they should investigate the incident.

Speaking alongside Sterling’s wife on Wednesday, fellow CIA whistleblower John Kiriakou said that Sterling “did exactly what he was supposed to do when he encountered a program of waste, fraud, abuse, or illegality.”

In 2006, Risen published a book that contained information about Operation Merlin. According to Risen, the CIA convinced a Russian scientist to slip fatally flawed nuclear blueprints to Iran. When the scientist spotted the problem and explained it to the Iranians, they were able to obtain useful information from the remainder of the blueprint.

The Department of Justice quickly homed in on Sterling as the suspected source, both because of Sterling’s legal disclosures to Congress, and because Sterling knew Risen, who had written about Sterling’s discrimination lawsuit back in 2002.

Sterling’s trial received national attention due to a legal showdown between Risen and the Department of Justice, which thrust Risen into the spotlight as an icon of press freedom. In 2008, the Bush administration subpoenaed Risen to testify against his sources on Operation Merlin, and Risen refused. The Obama administration upheld the subpoena, trying to pressure Risen into incriminating Sterling. Finally, in 2015, the Department of Justice withdrew the subpoena right before Sterling’s trial.

At trial, federal prosecutors relied almost entirely on Risen’s phone and email records, which showed that Sterling had communicated with him up until 2005. But the prosecutors did not cite the content of those communications, leading the BBC to call it a “trial by metadata.”

Risen has said that he had multiple sources on Operation Merlin, and Sterling has always denied being one of them.

The government argued that Sterling was not a whistleblower, but a “disgruntled man who hated the CIA and wanted to settle a score.”

In June, Sterling went to prison in Colorado – 900 miles from the couple’s home in St. Louis. According to Holly Sterling, legal fees have devastated the couple’s finances, but crowd-funded donations prevented them from losing their house.

According to Kiriakou, the government set out to make an example of Sterling. “The point wasn’t just to imprison Jeffrey,” he said. “It was to ruin him. Utterly ruin him. The point was to demonize him. And frighten any other would-be whistleblowers.”

Sterling’s conviction was part of a broader campaign by the Obama administration to crack down on whistleblowers. Since the Obama administration took office, it has prosecuted nine people for disclosures to the press – three times as many as all previous presidents combined.

Holly Sterling read out a statement from her husband: “I took a stand, and followed the rules. For this I was targeted, and finished.”

Should be easy for Obama to pardon Jeffrey Sterling for “whistle blowing” since he had little difficulty in paroling Jonathan Pollard, the Israeli spy who, according to American authorities, caused incalculable damage to the security of the U.S.
Go figure.

Many Iranian’s in the southern part of the country are “black” by American standards. Yet the country and its citizens don’t view them “racially,” as in the US. There are also many that are “white,” “Asian,” and the most common, some version of “brown.” Yet Iran doesn’t have the same history of racial policies, so racial concepts are not prevalent. In general racial concepts are on the decline in most the world, except in Israel where the government has incorporated racial ideology and prejudice into it’s day to day affaires of the country and into their version of “Jewish identity.”

I agree with the CIA’s assessment that a Farsi speaking African American man would have been extremely conspicuous. In an article entitled, “The Afro-Iranian Community: Beyond Haji Firuz Blackface, the Slave Trade, & Bandari Music,” Beeta Baghoolizadeh rightly concluded that, “because the legacy of African slavery in Iran contradicts the ever-so-pervasive Aryan myth of perfection and civilization, …nationalist myths of ethnic homogeneity” can be rightly understood as being “completely artificial.” Darked skinned, Farsi-speaking Iranians are seen as outsiders by the average Iranian – even within Iranian society. This is even more so true in other countries where Farsi speaking communities are already a minority.

This having been said, it appears that the CIA was hard pressed from the outset to find the proper use for a “big black guy” given its current political posture at the time. Had Sterling been trained from the outset for an African post – where his skin color would have been deemed an asset – we probably would not be having this conversation. There are legitimate race-centric concerns in the posting of intelligence officers; beyond efficacy, the safety of its officers is of paramount importance. Sterling would have been in a compromised position from the outset had he been posted in Farsi speaking community (e.g. Iran) as a covert intelligence officer.

The trajectory of contentious circumstance that followed Sterling’s complaints of racial discrimination is tragic but not unpredictable. By its very nature, the CIA relies on the absolute loyalty of its officers; they are tasked with gathering and keeping secrets that, if revealed, could result in the death of its agents, or of those who collaborate with them. Those who choose to openly characterize the unpopular decisions of their superiors as racist in nature are going to be perceived from that point forward as potential liabilities. Thus Sterling’s feeling of being further singled out would almost be inevitable. As worker discontent is most often cited as a principle reason for treason among intelligence officers, suspicion of Sterling as a whistle blower was/is logically sound.

@Karl-the last sentence of your above comment appears to be from a CIA jock sniffer? Are you a CIA jock sniffer?
With the overwhelming evidence of dishonesty coming from all things intelligence, there is nothing logically sound that’s intelligence related. Our government requires it’s employee’s to do the exact opposite of what U.S. citizens are supposed to do with a rogue government. Our government is just that, rogue. Sterling and Snowden are perfect examples of that.

With the overwhelming evidence of dishonesty coming from all things intelligence, there is nothing logically sound that’s intelligence related. Our government requires it’s employee’s to do the exact opposite of what U.S. citizens are supposed to do with a rogue government.

Is it a fact that all work product coming from intelligence sources is dishonest? Where is your evidence for this? Absent proof of this statement, the measure of its “logical soundness” can not be ascertained. But let’s play a “what if” game for entertainment purposes. Let’s suppose that what you allege is true and consider the following:

1. If an honest man says that 2+2=4 is it any more true than if a dishonest man says it?
2. Are all U.S. intelligence officers (from every agency) not to be believed? Even the whistle blowers?
3. Does the fact that Sterling is no longer a CIA officer make him any more credible than when he was employed by the CIA?
4. Does masking ones true intentions from ones enemies make one dishonest?
5. If the government is ruled by men whose interests are being served by the intelligence community, is it fair to call that community rogue?

@Karl-okay, if an honest man says the sky is falling does that mean I should wear shorts?
We the American people are the top of the power chain. We should not be lied to, period. Yes, with the history of dishonesty and false flag operations the “intelligence community” is rogue. Those exceptions the rogue intelligence and government communities want dead are the Snowdens and Sterlings etc, American heroes. The American citizenry isnt the enemy.

When was the last time you read our founding documents? Back in the late 1700’s would you say people lived in a safer environment or less safer? You are wrong! It was far less safer. They made The Declaration of Independence and The U.S. Constitution in a very dangerous reality so dont use anything fear related to justify our rogue government.

The gulf of Tonkin incident that drew us into Vietnam was a false flag operation done by the CIA. I had family drafted and killed in Vietnam. I would love to get my hands on the people that were responsible for that! Maybe it was you Karl? Can you look into 50,000 other families eyes and say this same ridiculousness?

Our enemies? The only people on the planet that fit that description want the U.S. to stop doing our rogue government activities in their neighborhood, like the gulf of Tonkin crap. Do you blame them?

It is interesting that you would characterize me as having “my head up my ass” when it is you that has shit spewing from your mouth. let’s return, once again, to your basic premise that all things coming from “intelligence”are dishonest… Again, where is the evidence of this?

Are you aware that “the United States Intelligence Community (I.C.) is a federation of 16 separate United States government agencies that work separately and together to conduct intelligence activities considered necessary for the conduct of foreign relations and national security of the United States.” Or, that almost one million Americans have top secret clearance. Or, that “private contractors make up 29% of the workforce in the U.S. intelligence community and cost the equivalent of 49% of their personnel budgets.” Are all of these people conspiring to produce dishonest intelligence for the sole purpose of undermining the U.S. Constitution and/or deceiving the average Joe?

Let’s take a look at you claim that America use to be far less safe when cannons and muskets were state of the art weapons. Are you aware that there are approximately sixteen thousand nuclear weapons in the world today. Or, that at its peak, the world contained over forty-five thousand nuclear weapons? Or, that we are less than four minutes away from global annihilation in case of all-out nuclear war? There were roughly 8,000 combat fatalities in the years between 1775–1783 (revolutionary war). The nuclear weapons dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were equivalent to 15 (150 thousand deaths) and 21 kilotons (75 thousand deaths) of TNT. The Russian Tzar Bomber is the equivalent of 50, 000 kilotons tons of TNT. Revolutionary war cannons fired a single solid metal ball or grapeshot as an anti personal weapon.

The Gulf of Tonkin incident came from the highest levels of the Johnson administration and was conducted by the Navy under Operation Plan 34-A. Although Operation Plan 34-A included clandestine operations against North Vietnam by the CIA, the incident itself was solely related to a Naval signal intelligence operation. The decision to falsely claim a North Vietnamese attack on a U.S. Naval vessel in international waters came directly from the highest levels of the Johnson administration – not a “rogue CIA.”

66.8 billion was spent on intelligence related activities by the U.S. government if 2015; of that, the CIA gets roughly 28%, or 18.7 billion – much of which is funneled into its drone program. Prior to being transformed into a paramilitary organization in the post 911 era, the CIA commanded a much smaller portion of the U.S. intelligence budget. In 1963, the CIA’s budget totaled a meager $550 million (which is roughly equivalent to 4 billion today when adjusted for inflation).

All U.S. intelligence gathering agencies engage in activities that are subject to statutory authorization (Executive Order 12333–United States intelligence activities). The question as to whether any particular U.S. intelligence gathering operation is in clear violation of international or domestic law is still very much a matter of legal debate. International Treaties often contain language that exempts national governments from abiding by its terms for any reason they consider essential to their security interests.

Terms like “rogue” are meant to blur critical distinctions for the sake of ones own bias. Chomsky would argue that the behavior of the U.S.intelligence community is very much in character with that of the political class. Collectively, the two have been historically consistent in both their aims and methods as the former is a merely a functionary agency of the latter.

As far as the U.S. constitution is concerned… progressives always prefer to think of it as a living document unless, or until, the SCOTUS is stacked with conservative judges.

@Karl-c’mon, 16 different intelligence agencies makes us safer? Bullshit! You are a fear monger! If anyone uses a nuclear weapon they will disappear. Mutually assured distruction wasn’t exclusive to the cold war between US and the Soviet Union.

Again, our founding documents were written in an unsafe environment and you refuse to accept it because it undermines your opinion. The Declaration of Independence doesnt change. Re-read it. It identifies the things we shouldnt accept from a tyrannical government and our government is tyrannical and yes rogue. Read it Karl……

Your initial claim was that the Declaration of Independence and U.S. constitution were conceived in a period of history that was “far less safer” than today. Even though you now admit that you were pathetically wrong in this claim (“mutually insured destruction”), you continue to use this line of failed reason against a straw man argument of your own making.

///\\…….so, can we anticipate this well-edited commentary to be soon published in one of THE FARM journals available only to a select few?…….as an editorial suggestion, you might want to shorten the sentence structure as a more appealing style…..was this too long?

…..good luck to Mr. Sterling and his long suffering family and friends…….

Wow, agentic? Are you certain of that? I never said whether, or not, I agreed with the way in which Mr. Sterling was ultimately treated. Rather, I stated that “I agree with the CIA’s assessment that a Farsi speaking African American man would have been extremely conspicuous.” Having traveled in Iran, I was able to witness first-hand how dark-skinned Iranians were received by their lighter-skinned counterparts. It is for this reason that I included the link to the article by Beeta Baghoolizadeh. Even if one wants to look beyond the latent racial bias of the average Iranian, the size of Mr. Sterling would have been an additional fatal flaw in the plan to use Mr. Sterling in a clandestine capacity. A large, black, African American male speaking Farsi in Bonn would have only have garnered suspicion and attracted unwanted attention to his activities and those of his contacts. Although race played a crucial role in the CIA’s initial decision not to follow through on Strerling’s posting to Bonn, the decision was not “racist” in nature.

1. why, yes, in fact, disbelieving EVERYTHING we hear from the spooks is probably a wise default position, GIVEN ITS PRESENT TOTALLY CORRUPTED NATURE…

2. gee, if i actually believed in the constitution, if i actually thought the powers that be were interested and invested in the core value of a well-informed citizenry to goad and guide ‘our’ (sic) fearless (sic) leaders, i might wonder HOW THE FUCK ‘we’ can exercise necessary, complete, and transparent oversight over ‘our’ institutions IN ANY CAPACITY, if they are totally opaque to ‘our’ representatives AND us stupid sheeple ? ? ?

3. i am betting bitcoins to donut holes, that there are PLENTY of examples where ‘inappropriate’ spook personnel were appointed to positions they were ‘conspicuous’ in… only i’m betting they were far, far lighter than mr sterling, THAT is how they ‘got away with it’…
further, YOUR OWN (supposed) first hand testimony, is that iran -in fact- *does* have dark-skinned natives, so -as far as YOU and I know- he could be EXACTLY the right person for that very reason…

Jeffrey Sterling didn’t ask to be trained to learn Farsi and be sent to Iran and then refused because of skin color. The CIA had him learn Farsi specifically for a mission in Bonn, Germany to recruit Iranian spies. He was ready to go but they decided against sending him there. The explanation given to him for that change was his skin color.

I agree, hence the lines: Darked skinned, Farsi-speaking Iranians are seen as outsiders by the average Iranian – even within Iranian society. This is even more so true in other countries where Farsi speaking communities are already a minority.

Pardon the confusion but you said you agreed with the CIA and they made conflicting decisions.
I don’t know if there’s an official CIA position on how the Iranians view Farsi speaking dark-skinned persons in Germany or Iran but apparently it isn’t one-sided as that they felt okay enough about Jeffrey Sterling being black to have him trained to speak Farsi to recruit Iranian spies.
And if you look at the NYT article linked in one of the words there, the CIA asked him again to go to Bonn after the person who replaced left the position. He said he didn’t want to be the 2nd choice but eventually went. There were some objections concerning lack of access others had and something about the position he was given.

The very NY Times article to which you refer speaks to the singular concerns of “a supervisor on the Iran Task Force of the agency.” One does not become a supervisor of a CIA Iran task force without thoroughly understanding the nature of race relations in the country; race is often used by the CIA to sow seeds of discontent for the host government it is targeting – as is class and religion.

It sounds like you’re saying that when the CIA decides to train someone to recruit Iranian spies and learn to speak Farsi, the Iranian task force isn’t involved in choosing those candidates. That’s hard to believe.

It looks to me like the singular concerns of a supervisor were not representative of official concerns of the CIA or the Iranian task force, but the way they dealt with Sterling’s reaction to how he was treated was rather team-like.

It sounds like you’re saying that when the CIA decides to train someone to recruit Iranian spies and learn to speak Farsi, the Iranian task force isn’t involved in choosing those candidates. That’s hard to believe.

The way that I understand it is that Sterling finished his training to become a case officer in Dec 1994. He than CHOSE to join the Iran Task Force in January 1995. However, it wasn’t until Mr. Sterling completed language training in 1997 that he was assigned to a Bonn-based group who were tasked to recruit Iranian agents in that region of Germany. Upon arriving in Bonn, Mr. Sterling was only allowed to handle two existing cases. In November 1997, Mr. Sterling was informed by his supervisors that he had “not been given new cases because his appearance was a hindrance.” Upon hearing their field assessment, he demanded that he be allowed to leave Germany, and he returned to headquarters in New York where he received mixed performance reviews for the next two years in the recruitment of Iranian agents.

Mr Sterling reports that he repeatedly complained that his cover as an “army officer” was the reason that he was largely unsuccessful in recruiting Iranian agents as it limited his access to key social functions at home and abroad. In spite of these alleged impediments, Mr. Sterling’s supervisors imposed upon him a quota that he characterized as “unrealistic and unfair” as the severely limited time constraints it imposed were deemed to be unrealistic when compared to those of his “white” counterparts. Upon filing a complaint with the equal employment opportunity office at the agency, he claims that he became the target of an internal security investigation which eventually led to his dismissal in 2001.

Karl, Jeffrey Sterling asked the CIA the pertinent question: “When did you first notice I was black?”
“Intelligence” would have noticed sooner than after he had spent a year studying Farsi, no? The CIA was
disrespectful in a very profound way to this man who wanted to make a contribution. Based on Sterling’s success in his other work endeavors before the CIA eliminated his ability to work, I think he would have found a way to be useful in Iran or wherever he was assigned. The racism in the CIA revealed by Sterling’s experience is not surprising given the history of the US government but it is shameful and nauseating.

I do not know what went into Sterling’s decision to study Farsi in 1996 – whether it was simply a career choice made by Sterling alone, or tat he was advised along those line by his initial handler – But he chose to do so at a very tumultuous time in CIA history. While Sterling was attending language school, Director John Deutch was being replaced by another Clinton appointee, George Tenet. Director Deutch was dismissed by president Clinton by giving overly aggressive testimony to Congress that depicted Iraq as a potentially unmanageable threat. Shortly after leaving his post as director, Deutch was discovered to have a number of unauthorized classified documents in his possession. Although Deutch was investigated for the remainder of Clinton’s term, he was pardoned by Clinton on his last day in office.

John Brennon served as an interim director of the CIA fro the first half of 1997. His first months as interim director was spent addressing the problem of chronic institutional lawlessness within the clandestine division of the CIA:

In 1996, the U.S. House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence issued a Congressional report estimating that: “Hundreds of employees on a daily basis are directed to break extremely serious laws in countries around the world in the face of frequently sophisticated efforts by foreign governments to catch them. A safe estimate is that several hundred times every day (easily 100,000 times a year) DO officers engage in highly illegal activities (according to foreign law) that not only risk political embarrassment to the U.S. but also endanger the freedom if not lives of the participating foreign nationals and, more than occasionally, of the clandestine officer himself.”

Immediately after being officially appointed to the position of acting director of the CIA on July 11, 1997, Tenant began to re-task the CIA in a way that was deliberately designed to marginalize the last vestige of cold war thinkers within its ranks. To this end, Brennon emphaized the rapid recruitment of “new talent” that were better able to adapt to the changes in modus operandi that he was proposing. Chief among his concerns was the rise of terror threats from “stateless actors.” Thus, for the remainder of the Clinton presidency, the CIA was rapidly transitioning to embark on its global “war on terror” which was officially unveiled just 4 days after the WTC attacks of 911. it appears that Sterling was caught up in a sea of rapid change during his year at language school that culminated in a reformulation of his worth as a black, Farsi speaking, clandestine agent in Bonn.